


Pulling at Threads

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Barebacking, Bottom Sam Winchester, Catharsis Ending, Curtain Fic, Depression, Dreams of Torture and Rape, First Time, Hallucinations, Healing, Hurt Sam Winchester, Intimacy, M/M, Making Love, Nightmares, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Episode: s15e06 Golden Time, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam's Bullet Wound, Season/Series 15, Series Finale, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Suicide Attempt, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Top Dean Winchester, Trauma, Visions, Witch Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22380730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: “We keep each other human.” Set during season 15, a canon-compliant AU from 15.06 onward. Sam is having frequent nightmares of him and Dean killing each other. They become increasingly graphic and vivid, driving Sam to the edge. One particularly gruesome and realistic vision drives Sam to end things, but Dean stops him. After a lifetime of running from death and hiding from each other, Sam and Dean reach a level of intimacy and honesty they’ve never had before. They grow closer and closer as the end gets nearer. Now connected to each other as never before, they take on Chuck as a team, using Sam’s blossoming witch powers and their bond to pave a new future for themselves.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 54
Kudos: 477





	Pulling at Threads

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Sam Winchester Big Bang. 
> 
> I wrote my own ending to the show, just how I like it.
> 
> Biggest and most amazing thanks to my artist and partner in crime, LeafZelindor
> 
> See their art at the links below and enjoy:
> 
> https://leafzelindor.tumblr.com/post/190430332174/art-for-the-absolutely-wonderful-fic-pulling-at
> 
> https://leaf-zelindor.livejournal.com/347251.html

Sam’s body felt so heavy.

He could’ve sworn he was sinking. He was sinking. He was grabbed by the ankles and pulled into the earth, the dirt parting to let him through, welcoming him back to where he belonged. Earth filled his lungs.

He tried to move but now he was on the prow of a sinking ship in a storm. Each step pushed him in the wrong direction. He stumbled. 

There were hands all over him. Hands from all sides. He tried to pull away but it just pushed him into more hands. Grabbing and controlling him. Overpowering him. Steering his useless body.

He was put into a device. A device he’d seen many times before. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move at all.

A woman came over, a nice, friendly looking woman, and she didn’t meet his pleading eyes, seemed not to hear his erratic, snuffling breaths, just hummed to herself while she prepared a syringe.

Big syringe. Big needle. Full of blood. Filling with blood. Dark and red and viscous. Right there.

Sam knew exactly what all this was. His heart picked up but he couldn’t even struggle. He couldn’t move at all. His breathing came out heavier and he felt pathetic. He felt like a mistake. This was corrective surgery.

But it wasn’t. He needed to get out. He needed to get out right now. They can’t do this.

The woman turned the syringe in her hand, peering at it with medical precision. Getting a dose. When she revolved it in her hand, a marker drawing on one side was revealed to Sam: a yellow eye. A yellow eye. A yellow eye.

She fiddled with a part of the machine and something pried Sam’s jaw open. Open so wide and he couldn’t do anything. In a half a second, so fast, before he could even think, before he could plan, beads of liquid hit his tongue and the back of his throat. The plunger depressed all the way down and all of the yellow eye blood went into Sam’s mouth. 

Sam tried not to swallow but the woman did that for him too. She moved the machine around and grabbed his throat and pinched his nose and made him swallow.

He swallowed and he tasted it.

He was having trouble breathing now. His stomach was of two minds, two faces. Roiling with revulsion and pain but absorbing it, processing it, remembering the feeling, mouth remembering the taste.

Ah, yes. That was all it took. One little dose one neat little dose made him fall all the way down the stairs he took so long to climb, longer than anyone else, they all left him behind and judged him.

He was back. He was so far back. He fell all the way down. And he wanted it. He wanted more.

He was mindless and glassy eyed while the next syringe was prepared. The machine might have been open he didn’t know he could try to escape but he won’t.

Blood. Blood and hands and machines. Blood and hands and machines and maybe he was a toy, now, nice and docile, perfect to play with, to use, use all the way to the seam, then throw away.

Throw away. Thrown away. Like always. Like every time before. Here he was again, the broken little boy.

Sam woke up on his back.

His legs were akimbo, arms resting on his stomach, and he stared at the ceiling, unable to see it, still trapped in the cotton cling of the dream, unable to escape from the visceral feelings drowning him. 

He wasn’t experiencing sleep paralysis. He knew what that felt like. But he couldn’t move. Fear and denial gripped his spine like ice and he couldn’t move.

It took a long time but parts of the dream faded. The images lurked in the back of his mind like some kind of twisted gallery, but he was able to move his rusted robot limbs and sit up.

He sat on the edge of the bed. He looked to the other side of the bed. Messy, pillow cold. Dean long gone, uncharacteristically now the early riser of the two of them. Sam didn’t even know what time it was. He looked down at his feet.

It felt real. Sam was two seconds away from thinking “it was real” but he knew he’d lose it if he did.

He had a very tenuous grasp on sanity right now, on feeling okay, on feeling like a person, and he knew it. He’s been here before. So many times before. And recently, too. Every night like this. 

He forced himself to stand, vision going fuzzy, TV static. 

He hobbled over to the bathroom. He couldn’t tell how long he spent in there, whether it was one minute or one hour, but when he came out he was not okay, but he could work with what he had. It was progress. He’d take what he could get.

He put on sweatpants and his softest, loosest shirt, a baby pink Lacrosse shirt they stole from some Goodwill a million years ago, whatever, and made his way to where he knew Dean was.

Dean sat at the kitchen table in a robe with a mug of steaming coffee, reading something on his laptop. He didn’t look up when Sam came in, so Sam went to the pot of coffee and poured himself some coffee, too. He made himself some eggs, scrambled, just like him, and sat down kitty corner to Dean.

Dean’s eyes flicked over to him from over the top of the laptop lid. “You look like shit.”

Hearing Dean was some kind of balm. Sam tried for a wry smile, but he was still having a bit of trouble remembering how to be himself. “Thanks.”

Whatever he did, Dean saw through it. Dean shut the laptop, hooked a foot around Sam’s ankle. “You okay?”

Before, when Sam was on a thin thread very high above the ground, he would have seen Dean’s kindness like this as a Hole, a Hole in the Fiber of Things. A fakeness. A Lucifer game, how good can we make things before we take them away.

Now, though, he knew it was for real. That Dean was. Dean was trying. He was trying very hard. And Sam knew it. They’d both been making up for things like they could see the credits about to roll.

So Sam gave as much as he can. “Same as usual,” he confessed, which made Dean purse his lips. 

“Still trouble sleeping?”

Sam nodded. 

Dean nodded back. “I found us another case,” he said.

Sam thought of Billy and his chest tightened. “Dean…”

“I can call other hunters,” Dean offered, and fuck, his voice was so gentle. Giving Sam an opening.

Sam slouched. “No,” he sighed. “No I just…”

The silence went on for too long. Sam looked up at Dean and hated the way Dean was looking at him. “We can do it,” Sam eventually rumbled. Dean nodded.

Dean stood, ruffling Sam’s hair. “Leave tomorrow?”

Sam fixed his hair. “Bright and early.”

“Bright and early,” Dean echoed as he sashayed out of the room.

The car was cramped.

Sam felt like he’d grown six inches overnight, like his knees were going to jam painfully into the glove box and his shoulders would smash against the roof.

He was so fucking tired.

Exhaustion was familiar to him, but it didn’t make swimming through it any easier. 

Last night’s nightmare was.

It was more of the same, really, more blood, more people, more touching. 

But every night felt more real.

Closer to what visions felt like.

And Sam couldn’t deal with that information right now. He just couldn’t.

Dean snorted. Sam jumped. He looked over at Dean.

“Sorry,” Dean said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Sam tried to play it off with a stretch. “S’okay.”

“I was just thinkin’,” Dean continued. “We’ve been here before, right? You can’t sleep, you don’t wanna sleep, we’re on the road. Feels like old times.”

Sam wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to that. “Yeah.”

Dean hummed to himself. “It wasn’t all bad,” he said, and cranked up the classic rock.

Sam knew that, in any other circumstance, he’d sit up straighter, sing along, play into Dean’s cheesy routine, and feel all those brotherly emotions. But right now it was very hard. So he smiled and shook his head and let Dean sing. 

He stayed still, perfectly still, listening to his brother.

Dean was a better singer than he used to be. Sam wanted to get him a guitar and listen to him play.

The town was small and the deaths were piling up. All suicides, all sudden, in strange ways. One man hanged himself at his son’s birthday party with the leash from the boy’s brand new puppy. Others more gruesome. Victims from age 6 to age 81. 

The town was a funeral. Every person, every street, a song in black. It reminded Sam of the apocalypse again, the proper apocalypse, in a town full of reapers.

They interviewed witnesses. One woman recalled her house feeling colder and the power having issues. Sam and Dean shift their research into ghost territory. That means lots of library time. Lots of articles and microfiches and probably a billion more interviews and location casings. 

Ghosts that make people kill themselves. Dean really knew how to pick them.

Sam buried himself in research. 

He worked hard to avoid his problems. If he could focus on this hunt enough, if he could be the good guy for once, if they could fix things, then maybe he would be okay.

He worked hard enough to burn himself out and pass out.

He was brought back. He was back where he started.

Dean had black eyes. A snarling mouth. Trapped in a cage, a literal cage in the corner of the room. He taunted Sam but the words were water. Sam got the gist anyways.

Lucifer sauntered over, catlike, touching Sam, touching him everywhere like a lover. Sam wanted to recoil but he was frozen. Time didn’t move here. It never had.

A bottle of blood. A little tiny bottle, thumb sized, but that’s all it took. Into his mouth with a putrid kiss. He couldn’t help it. He swallowed of his own volition. Pathetic.

Lucifer dropped Sam in the cage with his obsidian brother. It took no time at all. Sam lacked all willpower. He was weak, weak and delusional. Lucifer called him a doll.

In less than a minute Sam’s mouth was on Dean’s neck. He pierced the skin and suckd, hot blood, fresh blood, the best kind, delicious.

He drank until the whole world went red.

Sam awoke to an earthquake.

No, ocean waves.

A lullaby.

That was closest to reality. He looked up to find Dean shaking him gently. Back and forth. Strong and with a nice rhythm. Dean’s whole face was creased up like Sam had a dirty diaper.

“Hey,” Dean said when his eyes met Sam’s. “For a second there, I didn’t think you were gonna wake up.”

It took Sam a minute to process Dean’s words. He could still taste iron on his tongue, ripped flesh caught between his molars. He licked his lips and swallowed.

“I didn’t think that would work,” Dean said, mostly to himself. “Used to rock you awake all the time.”

Sam sat up. Dean hovered, like he wanted to help Sam, but Sam didn’t really want to be touched right now. 

“I didn’t know they were that bad,” Dean said, all quiet, like part of this was his fault.

Sam’s response was automatic. “It’s okay,” he said. His hands trembled so he feigned a stretch, hiding them between his thighs. “I’ll be okay.”

Dean didn’t look convinced. He stood, motioning for Sam to follow suit. Sam got up. Dean put a hand light on the curve in his spine and led him to the bathroom. An emotion welled up in Sam’s throat like vomit and he rubbed his nose into Dean’s cheek like a cat for half a second before slipping into the bathroom and closing the door behind him.

Dean was nice to him all day. Nice to him through every interview, every traded look at a potential clue, every meal break, every grisly crime scene. Every body piling up. 

More suicides.

Sam was fraying a little. 

Every dream poked another pin into another sensitive piece of flesh, and when he moved, he could feel each of them pulling at him.

But they were close.

The clues were fitting together, pointing somewhere. Once they found that final piece, this could all be over and done with. As depressing and brutal as this particular case was, there was something purifying about ghost hunts, something final. Sam liked to think the ghosts got to rest in peace just like the victims, and he hoped the families could find peace, too.

He was in the library reading an article from 1996 when Dean shot him a text:

FIGURED IT OUT

Sam packed his things, got up, and was out of there as fast as his shoddy knees could take him.

They found the right cemetery, the right plot, and burned the bones. An innocent gay man beaten to death by townspeople in the ‘60s. His lover had killed himself. And now killed the descendants of those who had killed his loved one.

Sam understood this ghost, and hoped that, after the bones were burned, he would be reunited with his lover.

It struck at some particularly tender chord in Sam, leaving him fragile, like overheated glass, one burn away from shattering.

The ghost didn’t put up a fight. Sam didn’t question it. The graveyard was silent and still while they did their business.

And just like that, it was over. Up in flames.

They walked out together. It was a cold night. Sam bumped against Dean and Dean bumped back. 

They got to the car and Sam stopped Dean from getting in, grabbing at his hand. Dean looked up at him in question.

“I just…” Sam didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say.

But Dean got it anyway. Just like he always used to. Same rhythm, same wavelength. 

Dean squeezed his hand. He let go and stepped over to the driver’s side. “Coffee,” he said, “lots of coffee and cookies.”

Sam nodded hard enough to mess up his hair. “I would kill for a vanilla latte.”

Dean snorted. 

They hopped into the car at the same time, and Sam let Baby pull him toward some kind of security.

Dean dropped Sam off at the motel and went on a coffee run.

Sam was exhausted. The cold made his bones ache and he turned the motel room heater up high enough for it to rattle like the dead. He dropped onto his bed, just sort of breathing for a moment, existing.

He was grateful Dean had the wherewithal to go out right now, because Sam didn’t. He also suspected Dean wanted to go alone to maybe get Sam a surprise, but he also wondered if it was vain to think that.

He yawned, rubbing absentmindedly at the faded scar on his palm, and waited for Dean to come home.

Sam was fire inside. And blood. And blackness. And anger.

He couldn’t control it. Control was pain. He was happy to spin out, savored the release.

He’d drank so much already that he was drunk. He stumbled. His hands were warm, red with blood up to the elbow. He had fangs. That was new. Kind of cool. Made everything easier.

He wanted horns, too, horns and a fat cock, so he could do to others what was done to him. He wanted to wrap this whole world in a sheath of black and drink them all down, make every little girl cry, do even worse, unspeakable things. Want want want.

Dean was there, all of a sudden, and his worry for Sam was despicable. His patience pathetic. He crept toward Sam and said nice things, affirmative things, offered to help, to do anything, even burn down the world with Sam.

It was something called love.

Dean loved him.

Sam was so angry.

He was unlovable. Hadn’t he proven that? Didn’t Dean know that? 

Sam was on him in a second flat, straddling Dean, cupping sticky hands around Dean’s throat and squeezing hard, feeling something crumple. Good. 

But something crumpled in him, too, some martyr-laden weakness, and he let go. 

“Kill me,” he growled.

But Dean won’t.

He couldn’t

Even when Sam needed it.

Especially when Sam needed it. Dean won’t let it happen, torturing Sam with a beating heart and expanding lungs and firing synapses. Drowning Sam in cloying horror.

Sam hated him.

He didn’t choke Dean this time. 

He held Dean down and ripped off his clothes, forced Dean to his will, made Dean do things he’d never do. And Dean did them. Silent, white save for the blood, Dean did it all.

Sam grabbed a gun. In a brief moment of clarity he considered putting it under his temple.

He put it to Dean’s instead.

And ate up all the aftermath, flesh heavy on his tongue.

This was what’s next. This was where they will go, where every road will end, ever since 1983. 

This was what Sam had been secretly dreaming of since he could dream.

When Sam woke up, he was convinced for far too long that reality was a dream. That the dreams of a monster like him were boring motels, darkness, and silence. Another kind of cage.

The dream slowly faded but that final feeling, that unshakeable certainty, remained.

It was a dream, but it also was real. Whether it was a premonition or something else, Sam remembered how visions felt, how he knew what was real and what was not.

And every part of him was telling him that that dream was real.

He wanted to vomit.

He didn’t.

He wanted to shake, to cry, to scream, to be tense.

He wasn’t.

Sam was calm.

When he’d had vivid hallucinations of Lucifer, he’d been calm then, too.

Sam was a rational person. He knew how to fix problems. He knew how to identify and sort through solutions.

He knew what the right one was.

He hauled himself up, foal-legged, and dropped to the ground by his backpack. He took out his Taurus, pearl-gripped, how in the hell hadn’t he lost this already.

He stood in the middle of the room and put the muzzle to his chin. It was cold. 

He stared at the ceiling. He imagined it coated in his blood and skull fragments.

But he couldn’t do that to Dean. He just couldn’t.

He sighed and it came out almost like a wail, a dying noise.

What was the best way to do this?

Sam had researched that many times. 

He got up, moving quickly.

Motel ice box. Bathtub. Razorblades.

It wasn’t long before the tub was full of icy water. It was to keep things clean.

He balanced a razorblade on the edge of the tub. He stripped down to his boxers and stepped in. The cold tensed up his muscles and he bit his tongue through the hell flashbacks.

He sat down, knees bent. He barely fit. 

Once he was settled, teeth chattering, he picked up the razorblade.

He turned his arm over, revealing the veins crawling up his wrist.

He held the razorblade over his wrist and drew a breath. It needed to be a deep, confident cut, or this wouldn’t work. Vertical was probably best, over the pale blue line.

The bathroom door opened.

“Sammy I hope you’re decent--”

Dean stopped when he saw Sam.

Sam had no time to bite out an excuse, to explain, to convince Dean, to knock him out so he wouldn’t see this, nothing. In less than half a second Dean slid to the ground like a baseball player hitting home base, knocking the razor out of Sam’s hand and sending it flying across the room.

“Dean--” Sam ground out through chattering teeth.

Dean ignored him. Dean put his arms under Sam’s armpits and pulled up, sucking the breath out of Sam, dragging him out of the tub and onto the tile floor, which was downright warm by comparison.

Dean didn’t talk to Sam; didn’t demand anything of him, didn’t get pissed or ask for answers. Dean was Action Man, grabbing every towel in the motel bathroom and surrounding Sam with them, covering Sam with them, getting him dry and warm, rubbing feeling into his frigid bones.

Dean brought Sam water. Sam drank it. Dean peppered him with endless little questions: you hungry? How do you feel? Still cold? Anything hurt? Want your latte? Your donut?

Sam dutifully answered all of them, but he wasn’t fully present.

After endless rounds of questions and fluids, Dean helped Sam into pajamas. Sam sat on the edge of his bed, wet hair curling against his ears, and watched Dean pace. 

“There has to be something we missed,” Dean muttered.

Sam laughed in disbelief. “You think?”

Dean frowned, ignoring Sam’s outburst. “If it wasn’t Nick, who is it? The boyfriend’s ghost?”

Sam’s chest went tight.

Ah.

That’s what Dean thought this was.

Sam’s lips thinned. “We got the right person,” he said carefully, looking up at his brother.

Dean stopped pacing and spun on his heel to face Sam. “Obviously not. Or you woulda…”

Sam watched all the pieces click in place in Dean’s head in live time.

Sam couldn’t believe he was alive right now, but he wasn’t surprised the reason was Dean. His lower back hurt from where it had been pressed against the lip of the tub. “If you could just go, I could try again.”

Dean barked out a laugh, but cut himself off when he realized Sam was serious. The Big Brother Furrowed Brow came out in all its glory, and Dean was in Sam’s space a moment later, cupping Sam’s face and staring deeply into his eyes. “I didn’t know,” Dean said, voice all gravelly and pained. He dropped his hands and sat on the bed next to Sam, their legs pressed up against each other.

“It’s… okay,” Sam eventually said, after a lot of silence. “It’s kind of recent.”

Dean shook his head. “How the hell are you so Dalai Lama about this?”

Sam shrugged. He may as well tell Dean. He still wanted to die, still believed it was the best and most pragmatic course of action. “I’ve been having visions again,” he said, watching Dean’s eyes widen, “and in them, I turn evil and kill you. And I won’t let that happen.”

Dean was quiet for a bit. “You’re so fucking stupid,” he finally said, pulling Sam into an awkward, slightly painful, and constricting sideways hug. He leaned back just enough to demand, “why didn’t you just tell me?”

Sam’s throat was full. “I had a vision today, and it felt so real,” he croaked. “The moment I woke up, I knew what I had to do.”

“What if they’re not visions?” Dean countered. “And if they are, what if we could stop them? And God is dead, man, wasn’t he, I dunno, Mr. Future? There’s no future now. So no visions.”

“Exactly,” Sam hissed. “If God were dead, I wouldn’t have visions.”

“So you think…”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “But I know these visions are real. I can feel it.”

“Okay, okay. I believe you,” Dean said. “But we’re gonna fix things, not end them, okay? There’s no Chuck, no evil bone in your body, just us against whatever has a bone to pick with us this time.”

Sam didn’t share Dean’s faith. He didn’t say anything.

“Okay?” Dean repeated, putting a hand on Sam’s leg.

Sam melted. Even if it was only to placate Dean, he nodded. “Okay.”

Dean looked satisfied, nodding back. 

Sam couldn’t help himself. “You said ‘bone’ twice.”

Dean frowned. “What?”

“In your little speech. You said ‘bone’ twice.”

Dean scoffed. “Shaddup,” he said, standing. “And let’s get the hell out of here and figure this shit out.”

All of their research led to nothing.

They returned to the bunker. They had no leads, no hints. They didn’t know any kinds of monsters that could cause visions or bring Sam’s powers back, and their research yielded no results. They had no direction to head in, casting a wide and vague net that brought in zero fish.

Dean was walking on thin ice around Sam, handling him with gloves on. Dean checked on Sam every couple of hours if they were separated, and asked Sam where he was going and what he was going to do. He made Sam special dinners and resurrected Movie Night. 

Sam appreciated it, he did. And he appreciated how seriously Dean was handling their search.

But he wasn’t optimistic, and while he would humor Dean, Sam still had the same Plan A for when they eventually hit a final dead end in their quest for answers.

A knife in the hand of the devil.

Lucifer in his true vessel.

Sam watched his hand move without his consent, removing another section of skin from Dean’s torso. Dean’s throat flexed like he was screaming, but everything from his throat had long been carved out. Lucifer didn’t like loud toys.

Lucifer cut a hole in Dean’s stomach. Lucifer went for Sam’s belt.

“Sammy,” Dean shouted, shaking Sam’s shoulders so hard Sam thought his neck was going to snap.

“M’awake!” Sam squawked, trying to bat Dean away, and Dean stopped shaking him, but didn’t let go, hands in an iron grip around Sam’s upper arms. 

“Another vision?” Dean asked.

Sam nodded. He swallowed down bile.

“What was it?”

Sam didn’t know if he could say it.

“Hey,” Dean said, softer, finally letting go of Sam to rub Sam’s shoulder. “Let me help.”

Sam’s shoulders sagged. He wrapped his arms around his torso. “Lucifer was riding shotgun,” he muttered. “We… tortured you.”

“Hey,” Dean said with a smile. “Lucifer’s gone. Don’t have to worry about that one.”

Sam did not share the same conviction.

Dean pulled Sam in, pecking his temple and ruffling his hair. “We’ll get back to things after I get some breakfast in you. Think I might’ve found a case, too.”

The research went nowhere. The case was equally bleak. Sam was not a fan of watching Dean execute a young boy, no matter if the boy was a werewolf or not. Sam was getting a bad feeling in his stomach, but so was Dean.

Watching Dean slip into the same funk Sam had been drowning in was a wake up call. Sam faked perkiness, faked hope, the whole nine, and found Dean a case, like Dean had found one for him.

That turned out to be a mistake.

A staged hunt. Being played with and strung along. A cheesy metaphor about brothers. Fucking Lilith. God being alive. God’s cruel and inevitable plan for them: one brother kills the other.

And the confirmation that Sam’s nightmares were in fact visions, glimpses of Chuck’s potential futures. 

Their future. 

Sam and hope were strangers to each other.

He was right. 

He was going to kill Dean, and they were both going to suffer. Go through hell, again, this time without respite. Without each other for eternity. 

Dean tried to talk to him in the car, to inspire some kind of confidence. Dean’s speech was good, and Dean promised to be there for Sam through it all, which was nice, but Sam stood by what he’d told Dean. 

He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know what to do anymore. He was lost, crushed under the weight of it all. He couldn’t do it anymore. He just couldn’t.

They drove in silence for a few beats after Sam confessed he didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t feel better. They both knew what it really meant.

That night, Sam had another vision. This time, Sam drank the blood after fighting it for a long time. In this dream, he and Dean knew about the visions and tried to counter them, but it didn’t matter. Sam still swallowed blackness and let go of his humanity. Sam still beat Dean to a pulp, Dean choking out “I love you”s even as Sam laughed in his face.

When Sam woke up, he was already hyperventilating. He was on his side, with Dean behind him. Dean drew him into an embrace, spooning him and holding him close. “Hey,” Dean murmured, breath warm against the back of Sam’s neck. “Hey. C’mon. You’re awake. Sammy. Hey.”

Sam couldn’t help it. That dream hit him right in the center of his chest. He sucked in a ragged, choked-off breath, and it came out as a sob. Then another, and another, until he was bitterly crying, wrapped up in Dean’s arms, snot-faced unable to stop, gasping out shuddery breaths.

He was dimly aware of Dean saying things behind him, more comforting things, just a litany of lullabyes, could vaguely feel arms around him, hands squeezing, trying to comfort, and if he were fully seated in his body, he’d be soaking up this kind of Dean, this Dean with warm hands and emotional intelligence and a sweet voice, but he couldn’t. 

If they died, whatever. If they failed people. If the world ended. If he went back to Hell.

Things could be awful, and Sam Winchester could bear through.

But Chuck had a personal vendetta out for him. And Chuck knew exactly what could hurt Sam in the deepest, most punishing way.

This was the one thing that made him tremble. 

“Sammy,” Dean said louder, voice rough with worry, drawing Sam out of his thoughts, “Sammy, c’mon, say something.” 

Sam took in another juddering, raspy breath. Exhaled just the same. “No.”

Dean was rubbing his back like he used to do when Sam had asthma attacks as a kid. “No?”

“No,” Sam grunted. “I don’t want to. I don’t want it to happen.”

Dean was quiet for a moment. His back-rubbing increased in intensity. “It won’t,” he murmured.

Sam flipped around to face Dean. “Do you really believe that?” he said, voice cracking.

Dean’s brow furrowed, and the half second delay he had before opening his mouth was answer enough.

Sam laughed. It was more of a broken noise. He looked up at Dean, unable to hide the pain that was burning inside of him. “All my life,” he said, throat strained with tears still left to be shed, “I’ve been told I’ll be a monster. But I don’t want to be one. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

Dean swallowed, looking away, looking over Sam’s head. “Sam--”

Sam grabbed Dean’s wrist, drawing Dean’s attention back to him. “I would rather die,” Sam said, as clearly as he could, staring unblinkingly at Dean. “I would prefer to die.”

Dean growled low in his throat. He yanked Sam forward, forcing Sam to intertwine his fingers with Dean’s rather than curl them around his wrist. “You aren’t a monster, and you won’t ever be one,” Dean said, lips in a small snarl of righteous conviction. “You are too good for that. And if it does happen, if Chuck manages some Not-Sam bullshittery, I will fix it.”

Dean took a breath. “Or I will kill you.”

Sam let out a similar breath. They were breathing in sync, moving in sync, energy shared and exchanged in waves. “You will?”

Dean nodded. “I will.” He cupped Sam’s face, leaning in close. “But we won’t get there, you hear? We will get out of this. And don’t you try nothin’. Don’t you dare.”

Sam blinked. 

“Promise me,” Dean rumbled.

“I--”

“Nuh uh.” Dean was reading his mind. “Promise me.”

Sam felt very small, but also very protected. “I promise,” he whispered.

Their noses brushed. Their eyes were locked, breaths shared.

Dean kissed Sam.

Sam jolted. 

Dean pulled away, just barely, still keeping Sam in his orbit. “I.” Dean bit his lip. “Fuck. Sammy.”

Sam’s mind was racing. But his heart wasn’t as calamitous as he would’ve expected in a situation like this. 

He stayed still while Dean unwrapped their bodies. 

Dean got out of bed, just in boxers and socks. What kind of person went to bed in their socks?

“I’m gonna make breakfast,” Dean croaked. “Be presentable in fifteen, ‘kay?”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving Sam alone with his thoughts, thoughts like worker bees buzzing round and round the hive.

Sure enough, Sam was presentable in fifteen, took a quick shower, even, and showed up in the bunker’s kitchen to the sound of sizzling bacon.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Dean--”

“Not for you,” Dean said. He pointed a spatula at the table. “That’s for you.”

At the table, a plate of pancakes, an orange, and one of Sam’s frozen veggie sausages cooked to a crisp. A mug of steaming coffee, pale with cream.

Sam softened. “Thanks,” he said.

Dean went red at the tenderness coming from Sam’s lungs. “Whatever,” he grumbled. It wasn’t long before he finished cooking his bacon and eggs and took a seat across from Sam.

They usually sat kitty corner. There was barely any extra distance between them like this, but Sam still felt the difference, felt a kind of absence, like an empty bird’s nest in winter.

“Hey,” Sam said, and Dean looked up. “About earlier--”

“No, no, no,” Dean cut him off. “Look, can we just forget it?”

Sam didn’t want to. Did he? His chest tightened. He switched tracks for Dean’s sake. “Thank you for being there, is all,” Sam said. “I was about to end things.”

Dean’s embarrassment turned sober, and Dean gave him a brief nod. “‘S what I’m there for,” he said. He kicked Sam under the table, their ankles briefly locked together. “Now finish your food, you big bean pole.”

So Sam did.

Their research continued, this time with a more definitive aim: fucking God up. Killing God. Destroying Gods. Reversing fate. Harnessing energy. Whatever they could think of.

Eileen’s ghost was a shock, but Sam’s competency with magic was an even bigger shock. He completed a spell that Rowena herself hadn’t been sure she had the abilities to perform. 

Gaining a friend was a tiny seed of hope in Sam’s chest, growing right along next to the kiss Dean had planted there. 

His confidence was growing, too. He felt like a new person.

He was a witch.

He had people who loved him, he had people on his side.

And he had at least a little bit of magic on his side.

It gave Sam ideas. 

Having Eileen around was good for Sam. He felt like she understood him in a way not many did. There was always a little bit of a disconnect between Eileen and Dean, though, a layer of politeness between them. It wasn’t long before Eileen looked between them and said the two of them needed some space. She wrapped Sam in a warm hug and made him promise he’d video call every night. 

He did, asking her what she was up to and where she was going. He looked forward to seeing her every night.

Dean noticed Sam’s renewed energy. Sam hoped it was contagious, and felt secret satisfaction every time he got Dean to laugh or smile. 

Now, when Sam had nightmares, Dean was faster to wake him, faster to ground Sam to reality. And Sam took what was offered instead of resisting, instead of wallowing in self hatred. He melted into Dean’s arms, sighed at the whispered platitudes. 

Neither of them brought up the kiss.

Sam practiced small spells, gathered ingredients. Restored the bunker’s broken and dying greenhouse and filled it with plants. The growing green grew alongside a solid feeling in his chest.

He may be a burning car crash heading toward oblivion at a hundred miles an hour, but he was going to spend every second heading toward the guardrail doing his best to stop it. 

It was the least he could do. 

Castiel chose a good moment to return to their lives.

Dean was getting antsy, pacing like a rat in a cage, and Sam’s bolstering hope could only take them so far before their lack of leads took a toll on them. 

Dean was flagging. 

It seemed every time one of them took a step forward, the other took a step back.

Just as a restless, cagey Dean was about to leave to take a drive to who knows where, the door to the bunker clanged three times. It wasn’t often they got visitors. Sam and Dean traded looks.

With a pistol in hand, Sam rolled open the heavy metal door, and an exhausted looking Castiel stepped through.

“Cas,” Sam and Dean said at the same time, Sam with happiness, and Dean with. Well. Not happiness. 

Cas looked at them both, giving them each a small nod in greeting. “I’m tired of running,” he said.

He didn’t need to explain. Sam wrapped him in a brief hug. He pulled away. “We are, too,” he said. 

Dean was still sulking, not exactly civil with Cas, but not completely cold, either. Sam hoped Dean just needed time. Dean wasn’t usually the kind to hold grudges. 

Sam was grateful for Cas’ presence; it was a change of pace, it was something new.

And Cas came bearing ideas and wisdom and a new perspective.

Cas had theories about Sam’s visions, speculating that the wound in Sam’s shoulder was connecting him to God and giving Sam a view into God’s head.

It was something. And it was a potential weapon, a potential way to turn the tides. 

Sam would take what he could get.

Cas’ theory led Sam, Dean, and Cas to stand in the bunker’s infirmary, Sam perched on a hospital gurney with his shirt off while Cas poked around his shoulder. 

One of Cas’ hands held onto the back of Sam’s shoulder, sliding a little lower.

Dean stepped forward, loudly clearing his throat. Cas’ hand moved. “Any progress?” Dean barked.

“A little,” Cas said, after a beat. “I think I can use my grace to explore the wound, much like I can explore a soul. I could see if any energy is there, or perhaps feel a link.”

Dean nodded. “Sounds good. Sam?”

“Should I bite down on a belt?” Sam asked.

“Maybe,” Cas said. 

Cas started going for his belt.

“I’m okay,” Sam said quickly, side-eyeing the vein standing out on Dean’s forehead. “I’ll be alright.”

Cas stopped pulling at the belt loop. “Alright. Are you ready?”

Sam let out a breath. “As I’ll ever be.”

Cas nodded. He looked to Dean. “Would you mind standing back?”

Dean didn’t say anything. He stood back, but he didn’t look pleased about it.

Sam offered Cas a small smile of apology. Cas smiled back.

Then, his hand was on Sam’s skin. 

It burned. Hot, like fire, then cold, like ice, then both at once.

Sam let out a strung-out groan, clenched through his teeth. Dean moved back into his space, watching with concern as Sam’s bullet wound began to glow a silvery white.

Sam was channeling his thoughts into the growing patterns of the snapdragons in the greenhouse, trying to concentrate on anything but the pain, when a switch was flicked. His mind went blank. 

He felt himself listing forward, then he felt nothing at all.

Dean was moving the moment Sam’s eyes rolled back. He caught Sam before Sam could fall to the floor. 

“Jesus christ,” Dean grunted. 

Cas helped him pull Sam up and into a supine position on the gurney. Dean looked down at Sam’s placid, unconscious face and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He turned to Cas. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” Cas said. He pushed past Dean. “I need to get a look at him.”

Dean hovered over Cas’ shoulder while Cas inspected Sam with his divine faculties. Anxiety was gnawing at his stomach and it wasn’t long before his impatience got the best of him. “Well? What is it?”

Cas looked over his shoulder at Dean with a frown. “It’s the wound,” Cas said, and Dean resisted the urge to snap back something sarcastic. “It’s reacting to my grace.”

“What does that mean?” Dean asked. “What does it mean for Sam?”

“Well, to some degree, it confirms my suspicions,” Cas said. “There’s definitely something supernatural going on with the wound.” Cas put a hand on Sam’s forehead. “But it’s hurting Sam, and quickly.”

And weren’t those Dean’s least favorite words. His anger was gone, wholly absorbed by his soul-crushing fear of anything bad ever happening to Sammy. “Can you fix him?”

Cas fixed his steely gaze on Dean. “I can try.”

Cas put his hand on Sam’s wound again, brow furrowing in concentration, then in pain. His whole face went tomato red before he stumbled away from Sam, wheezing for breath.

“This… connection, it’s growing. It’s reacting to me. I need to reverse what I’ve done somehow, or Sam will keep getting worse.”

And die. That was what Cas didn’t say. Dean swallowed. “Reverse it, then.”

“I need to meter the connection, but I’m afraid if I interfere any more, God will know what we’re doing,” Cas said. “There’s a possibility that the connection goes both ways.”

Okay, Dean did not like the sound of that. He bit down his frustration. “Then what do we do?”

Cas peered at him. Then peered at him some more, long enough it made Dean uncomfortable. It was a hitched breath and shiver from Sam that broke the spell. “What?” Dean snapped.

“You,” Cas said. “You and Sam also have a connection. I could use it.”

“Sure, whatever,” Dean said, feeling flushed, feeling far too seen for his comfort. “Just fix him.”

“Your shoulder. May I touch it?”

Dean offered his shoulder to Cas, yanking down his henley. Cas placed his hand on Dean’s shoulder, his other hand on Sam’s, and closed his eyes.

Dean braced himself. He expected pain, grueling pain, burning through his soul.

What he felt instead was a wiggle.

A warm, strange wiggle all over his body. A vibration down to his soul. A radio wave pulsing from his heart, but wait, not just pulsing out, connecting him. Something going both ways, like a spirit highway. And Sam was at the other end, Dean could feel him. Dean could feel all of Sam in some indescribable, soul filling way, like they were both half full cups and now they were mixed. 

It was overwhelming. Dean’s human brain, all meaty and synapsey, was having trouble processing the celestial feelings.

The connection stopped cold turkey, leaving Dean feeling less than normal, disconnected, amputated.

But Sam’s eyes flew open and he tore in a ragged gasp, sitting upright, chest heaving.

Dean could ignore the emptiness in his stomach in favor of reaching out and touching Sammy and seeing if he was okay.

Sam’s body felt strange. Not… occuppied, not turned inside out like torture or posession, which he was used to. It felt like he’d taken a lozenge for the soul. He was slightly warm, and very present, like the opposite of dissociation. His wound burned a little, he was really thirsty, and his head hurt.

Cas and Dean were looking down at him with twin Something Really Bad Happened faces. Sam looked between them. “What happened?’

“How do you feel?” Cas asked instead of answering.

“Alright,” Sam answered, frowning. “What--”

Sam’s heart skittered like a frightened rabbit. He just realized he had four eyes. Two sets. And one set saw something different from the other.

One moment, he felt normal, and the next, he noticed his new vision. He tuned out Dean’s frantic voice to focus on his second sight.

It was blurry, his brain struggling to adapt to his additional senses, but he could make it out. It was a computer screen in a house. A fireplace mantle. Hands typing frantically. 

_Yeah, that’s good. Give them allies, give them hope. Then take it away._

Sam stiffened. Those weren’t his thoughts.

Those were Chuck’s.

Still breathing heavily, Sam shifted his focus to his normal eyes, his regular eyes, fuck, could Cas and Dean see another set of eyes on him? Where were they? Above the first? Same color, or blue, like Chuck’s?

“I hear him,” Sam said, voice strangled. “I see what he sees.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “You--”

“I know exactly what Chuck’s doing,” Sam choked out. “Get me a pen and paper.”

Sam tried to find a way to turn off Chuck vision, or mute his thoughts, or anything, but he couldn’t. He could shift his focus, but that only lasted so long, and Chuck’s thoughts kept going in the background, not entirely ignorable. 

It was going to drive him crazy. 

If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. 

And, just like that, even after all their progress, Sam was fraying again.

He asked Cas about it. Apparently, he still looked normal, which was a small relief. Cas tried everything he could to turn it off, even just temporarily, but nothing worked. 

Sam was stuck with it.

It wasn’t long before he gave up writing things down and fled to the safety of his and Dean’s bedroom.

Back when he had vivid hallucinations, plunged into hell every night, he would curl up in the shower while Dean was asleep and let the hot water burn all the ice away. Sometimes he’d come out of the shower completely pink, feeling raw, and notice scratches all over his body that he didn’t remember carving into his skin.

Hearing Chuck’s thoughts was a little more disjointed than directly experiencing Chuck’s “drafts” in his recent nightmares, but it was constant, a drill boring into his skull. And an ever-present reminder of the clock ticking down above his head, making his fingers twitch.

It wasn’t long before Sam escaped to that familiar refuge.

The bunker had a communal shower room, large and tiled, with a big tub right in the middle.

Sam turned on one of the shower taps in the farthest corner of the room, cranking the heat as high as it would go. He stripped out of all his clothes and huddled under the spray, letting it melt him.

Then he sat, pressed into the corner, tiles against his back. He curled his arms around his bent knees and closed his eyes. He tried to focus on the constant susurrus of the shower water.

He just wanted some peace.

He wasn’t aware he’d started rocking back and forth until a hand on his shoulder trying to stay him startled him.

Sam flinched back, wet skull hitting the tiles, and he looked up with wide eyes at a naked Dean crouched by his side.

Sam watched unblinkingly as Dean scooted closer to Sam, dropping onto his ass and mirroring Sam’s position, pressing himself up against Sam. 

It was intimate.

“I thought you stopped doing this,” Dean murmured, just loud enough to be heard over the spray.

Sam flushed, though it was invisible with how red his skin had already become. 

“Can you still hear him?”

Sam nodded. He felt helpless, infantile. The naked and huddled up part didn’t help. “I can’t turn it off. I can’t focus.”

Dean nodded. The empathy on his face was clear. Dean wrapped an arm around Sam, pulling him closer, pressing more of their skin together. “Focus on me,” Dean said. “I know you can do that, Sammy. Just listen to the sound of my voice.”

Sam appreciated the effort but he had already tried this method. It was useless. “Dean--”

“Nuh uh, humor me, okay?” Dean’s smile was bracketed with parentheses made of streams of water. They highlighted his freckles.

Sam sighed. 

Dean cleared his throat. “I know shit’s fucked right now, but I believe in you, and I believe in who I am when I’m with you. And I know how scared you are, fuck, I know, and the fact you can keep going and smile and work with our friends is. It’s so much. I don’t know how you do it, man. But it makes me want to get past this. And see what you could do when you’re just. Free.”

Sam’s throat was full for like the millionth time today. 

Dean rubbed a hand down his back. He pulled it away and grabbed for the shampoo. He started lathering up Sam’s hair. “I’ve known you since you were like a few hours old, kid,” Dean said. “And I wanna know you for the rest of forever. Some super powerful bitter old schmuck won’t stop me.”

Sam snorted. “He might.”

“Nah, he won’t,” Dean said. “‘Cause Cas showed me our souls, and they’re like this.” Dean crossed his sudsy fingers. He rinsed Sam’s hair. “I felt it. Our connection. The uh, little dance our souls are doing. And it’s more powerful than Chuck. Especially since you’ve got the inside peek. Speaking of…”

“I still--” Sam stopped himself short. He was going to repeat what he’d been saying all day, that it won’t stop.

But it did stop. It had stopped. Sometime during Dean’s speech, sometime while Dean’s hands traversed Sam’s skin.

His head was quiet, his second eyes closed. 

He looked at Dean in wonder. “You did it.”

Dean’s face broke into a wide, toothy smile. “Hey, shouldn’t’a doubted me.”

Sam laughed despite himself. “Holy shit,” he breathed. 

“You’re welcome. My services are available any time.”

“But how?”

“This,” Dean said, poking Sam right above his heart. “And this.” Dean poked his own chest.

Sam looked at Dean. 

Dean looked at Sam.

Dean snorted. “Not my best line.”

Sam smiled. “No, definitely not.”

He leaned forward and kissed Dean. It was brief, but Dean definitely kissed him back. Sam leaned back just enough to meet Dean’s eyes and smiled.

Dean’s eyes flicked anxiously between his. Sam watched Dean’s adam’s apple bob in his periphery. “Sammy…”

“Hey,” Sam murmured. “We’re past that.”

Dean frowned, but he didn’t speak up again. Sam leaned forward, slowly, so slowly, giving Dean a million outs, and kissed him again.

Dean kissed back.

They kissed for a long time, breathing together, souls like waves in sync, washing up on the beach together, hands wandering lightly, automatically, the water pouring all around them, keeping them warm and safe. It was curious at first. They found their rhythm.

The bunker was magic, and the water never got cold. But after enough time, they both felt the moment tick past, and reality caught up to them like the tide.

They mutually pulled away. Sam looked at Dean, checking over his reaction, and found Dean doing the same. 

They got up, bodies cracking like their old souls. They turned the water off with pruney fingers and got back into their clothes.

There, dry and clothed, in the quiet, echoing bathroom, Sam knew for certain that something in them had drastically changed. 

Changed for the better.

Even though it seemed insane, they made progress.

Cas and Eileen made regular visits, meeting each other for the first time. They were fast friends, too; Sam initially found it a strange pairing, but he realized they made some kind of sense.

Sam’s witch powers were blooming. There was something more intuitive about it now, like something in his brain had unlocked, another sense. 

Through Dean, he was managing his connection to Chuck.

He wasn’t quite to the point where he could turn it on and off, but he could focus on it and focus away from it. Chuck’s sight and thoughts were clearer and easier to sift through. He’d already filled three composition books with Chuck’s thoughts, plans, and writings.

They knew almost everything Chuck was planning. 

The real trick was how to avoid it, counter it, and ultimately defeat Chuck without Chuck catching onto the fact they had his pages. If Chuck found out, then who knows what even a weakened God could do. If he could feed Sam corrupt information, trick him. Or even turn the switch off, or hurt Sam. Kill him. 

They had to be careful.

The next breakthrough came via Eileen and her wonderful brain.

The things they already knew were this:

-Chuck didn’t intend on showing his cowardly face at all.

-He was vacillating between three final options: getting Sam back on demon blood, re-starting the (first) apocalypse, and turning Dean into a demon.

-He was physically weak, and his powers, while still great, weren’t responding to him like they used to.

-He was a douchebag.

-He intended to start his war against the Winchesters very soon by sending a fleet of demons through a devil’s gate, or some other disastrous addition to the monsters everywhere, and killing a friend, most likely Castiel.

Other than that, Chuck wasn’t really a writer who used outlines. He was frenetic, jumping between ideas, latching onto each new “big idea” but never committing to anything smaller or more detailed. There were some perks to that, but there were some significant cons, too: it meant they wouldn’t know how Chuck intended to fight them until right before it happened.

Eileen had a tentative plan.

According to her, all of Chuck’s ideas did share some common thread: he wanted to turn one Winchester into a monster and have one of them kill the other. Either the good one kills the monster or the monster kills the good one. And all of his ideas to jumpstart this involved breaking some kind of barrier: weakening the fabric between dimensions, opening a devil’s gate, opening purgatory, etc.

So, Eileen proposed, they should start on the defensive so they don’t feel useless. And since they were reasonably sure Chuck was going to throw monsters, demons, or angels at them, the first step would be to fortify the bunker and surrounding areas against those creatures, and find areas of interest and set them up to “alert” the bunker if triggered. 

It was easy enough to say, harder to enact, but doable.

It was the start to an actionable plan against God.

They got to work immediately. The bunker’s well of resources came in handy, and by the end of the week, they had a huge map of the world spread out over the strategy room table marked with dozens of locations. Color coded with a key, thanks to Sam.

Sam was used to being the Lead Researcher, to being an Action Man alongside Dean, but with Chuck in his conscious brain and his nightmares, it was difficult. He ended up doing just a fraction of the work that Cas, Eileen, and Dean did, and it made him feel like some useless doll gathering dust on a shelf. He practiced some magic, but maintaining the concentration required of him was hard.

He knew the others didn’t see him like that, that they were worried about him considering what he was going through (and what things he had almost done out of desperation), but the feelings persisted. 

Chuck was writing more and more, and Sam’s wrist fucking hurt. It was hard to keep up, and exhausting to update everyone. It was the worst when Chuck came up with a new idea and latched onto it all day. They never knew if they should consider it or not, since the chances of Chuck throwing it out in a fit or actually working on it were about 50/50.

The time bomb over Sam’s head was getting louder and faster. He felt like he was trapped on a carousel and the music was getting faster and louder, the wheel spinning faster.

“Hey.” Dean put a hand over Sam’s, stilling his writing. “Sammy. That’s barely legible.”

Sam looked down at the notebook. It looked like twelve different doctors tried to fill out prescriptions on it at once. Even he couldn’t read it.

Sam dropped his pen.

“Why don’t we take a break,” Dean suggested. “Clear our heads.”

“Dean… no. We can’t give Chuck any advantage.”

“Sammy, Eileen and Cas went out for freaking pizza. We can do something for a few hours. Besides, you’re no good to us if your brain is completely fried.”

As much as Sam wanted to argue, a part of him knew Dean was right.

He let Dean help him up. They walked to the family room together, which now had a huge couch you could sink into, two recliners, a coffee table, and a shelf full of DVDs and types of alcohol. Dean herded Sam onto the couch and disappeared to who knows where. Just as Sam was focusing on Chuck again, hatred making his hand twitch, Dean was back. He had a bowl of popcorn and some gummy worms that Sam pretended not to love. 

Dean put a glass of water down on the table for Sam and a can of beer for himself. He sat next to Sam, all squished up in his space, wandering hand lowering Sam’s blood pressure.

Dean channel surfed, barely listening to Sam’s judgements on the shows and movies that appeared.

_The Mummy_ came on, and even though they’d both seen it a thousand times, it was a mutual favorite (for different reasons), so they kept it on. It was about a third of the way through but that didn’t bother either of them. Sam kept the bowl of gummies in his lap and Dean had the popcorn. They traded back and forth, absentmindedly snacking and watching. 

It felt good to absorb something that wasn’t Chuck’s thoughts or plans, or some old lore about how the barriers between heaven, hell, and purgatory worked.

They were watching a fight scene when Dean brushed Sam’s hair behind his ear. “Hey,” Dean said. “How you feelin’?”

Sam turned to look at Dean, his face like a pen and ink portrait in the dark room, cast in blue by the light of the TV. He smiled at his brother. “I’m good,” he said, and he meant it.

Dean kissed him.

Sam wasn’t really expecting it, but he wasn’t really surprised, either, and he was more than willing to lean in, shifting into Dean’s space, and deepen the kiss. He let the sounds of the movie wash around him as he focused on Dean’s body.

Dean’s hands snuck up under his shirt, rubbing at the knobs on his spine and the cut of his hips. 

Before long, Dean’s hands had traversed his belly, heading upward to his nipples.

Sam shivered. Dean chuckled against Sam’s mouth. “You sensitive?”

Sam didn’t know how to respond to that, heart fluttering in his chest, so he settled for scooting onto Dean’s lap and kissing Dean all wetly and messily.

Dean was more than content to get with the program, hands moving between the knobs of Sam’s spine and rubbing callused thumbprints over his nipples.

Dean knew what he was doing, Sam could tell. Dean had some plan in mind, and after trying to come up with millions of his own plans, Sam was more than happy to trust in his brother and follow along. 

Dean’s wandering hands skated up, then back down.

Lower and lower.

Dean popped the button on Sam’s jeans, looking up at Sam with heavy lids. “This okay?”

Sam was kind of crazy, definitely nervous, and ludicrously hard.

He nodded, biting his lip.

Dean went to work.

Sam didn’t know how else to describe it.

It’d been so long since he’d… done anything. Anything at all. Even by himself.

And suddenly someone was exploring, learning what Sam responded to, what buttons to push.

Sam couldn’t censor his reactions, couldn’t control anything.

It was barely two minutes later when he went stiff, chin pressed into Dean’s shoulder as he held on for dear life, gasping through orgasmic contractions that blindsided him. 

Dean was whispering something the whole time, quiet enough that Sam couldn’t quite grasp it.

It took him a few minutes to get through the aftershocks. Once he did, he untucked himself from Dean’s grasp and leaned back, giving Dean a tired, exhausted smile. 

“What about you?” Sam asked, voice ragged.

“You were uh… squirmin’ the whole time,” Dean said, shifting his hips. He gestured down at his lap. “Kinda took care of itself.”

“Oh.” Sam felt like a teenager, his cheeks red. 

Dean tapped him on the hip. “Get a towel from the bar?”

Right. Sam hopped off Dean, stumbling slightly on his way over. He wet a small hand towel and did a halfassed job at cleaning himself and Dean up. They readjusted, rebuttoned. 

They’d barely missed anything when they focused back on the movie, but now, Sam was more aware than ever of Dean’s body next to his, and he knew the feeling was mutual.

Chuck couldn’t bother him now.

Sam fell asleep halfway through the movie, listing until he fell sideways into Dean’s arms. His dreams were weird, like a black, plastic ocean, flitting between senseless things, endless guilt, and black eyes, red hands, and screams.

It wasn’t Dean who woke him. 

It was Eileen’s shout.

“Dean! Sam!” she was screaming over and over again.

Dean shook Sam, and they both sat up, adjusting themselves just as Eileen and Cas burst into the room.

“It’s the devil’s gates,” Eileen gasped, standing in the doorway, hair a mess. “He’s opened them. All of them.”

Dean was up even as Eileen was finishing her sentence, cursing up a storm. 

Sam ran after them, thoughts whirring, realizing that the Chuck part of him had gone silent and blind.

He didn’t know how to feel about that.

They had a network of hunters now, real connections. People Sam had worked with and influenced, and people they’d known for longer. Jody and the girls were building their own family, too.

They reached out to everyone. Alarms up, world’s ending, the usual.

It was nowhere near enough people to fight all of hell’s armies coming through the gates, but it was a start.

Sam found himself in Baby with Dean, Eileen, and Cas, zooming down a barren highway toward an old, familiar part of the country, where they’d once ended a different part of their story.

The gate was in a cemetery. The place looked completely unchanged, like nothing had happened here in the last 13 years. It gave Sam chills, sending a deep ache through the scar at the base of his spine.

At first, all was quiet, empty. 

The moment they headed into town, though, they knew something was off.

There were no black spirits flying out of the gate, even though the gate was open. 

The demons were fast, coordinated.

The entire town was already possessed. 

They were surrounded the moment they stepped out onto the street, and they could see more people and vehicles arriving from all the side streets. 

Sam hated this part.

He loathed it.

He loaded a devil’s trap bullet into a pistol and shot a 9 year old girl in the head just before she could have swung a machete into Dean’s thigh. She was wearing a flower girl dress.

He couldn’t let himself feel anything.

They threw durable, portable speakers all over town, playing recordings of Sam and Dean reading out exorcisms, and they saved a few people that way, but not as many as Sam would have liked before enterprising demons located the speakers and smashed them. 

Sam was back-to-back with Dean; Eileen and Cas were nowhere to be seen. He stabbed a pastor in the throat with the demon-killing knife, watching the man flash and burn and collapse to the ground.

He was sweating, bones aching, and he’d been hit a few times, knew he’d probably broken a rib. He had to move carefully not to puncture his lung or send a bolt of pain down his spine.

“Sammy,” Dean grunted, keeping two demons at bay with well-timed kicks while he reloaded his gun, “how we doin’ back there?”

“Not good, “Sam panted in response. “Still more coming. Low on ammo.”

“Me too.”

Sam didn’t want to die this way. “This is so fucking stupid.”

Dean laughed. “You got that right.”

Dean fired, right by Sam’s ear, deafening him. He used the ringing in his ears to narrow his focus and separate himself from the mass murder he was committing.

Sam had always been known for his aim. He was a great sharpshooter and sniper. Bang, bang, bang. He shot people in the center of their foreheads before moving onto the next like he was playing a god damn video game.

Where the hell were Cas and Eileen?

A god awful squealing noise pierced even Sam’s addled hearing. He whipped his head toward the only building downtown above six stories. The bank building. He could just barely see a figure at the edge of the roof, next to the tornado siren.

Sam went weak with relief, then cut back a groan as a demon landed another gut punch.

He begged Cas and Eileen to hurry up. He had to shoot an older woman three times before she went down.

Then, finally, a firetruck squealed to a stop in the center of the intersection. Eileen grabbed a firehose and started spraying jet-powered columns of water at the demons, knocking them over like bowling pins and obliterating them with holy water at the same time.

Castiel’s voice began to echo out, rapid fire, mechanic and angelic as he read out a short Enochian exorcism. 

The sky went midnight black with all the demons being forced back into hell. The winds made Sam stumble into Dean, and they held each other, watching a hurricane of smoke and holy water dance through town and dissipate.

It took a few minutes, but the sky cleared up. 

The townspeople were just coming back to themselves as the sun came back out. 

People were injured, confused, terrified, grieving, sobbing, not knowing what to make of bloodied Sam and Dean. 

Sam was relieved their plan worked, elated, even, hoping that the other teams had managed to pull of similar stunts near their devil’s gates. 

But he couldn’t focus on his happiness. All these people needed his help.

Sam shouted at the nearest group of victims. “Hey, we’re here to help. We gotta call ambulances from out of town, okay. We’ll get you some help.”

Click.

The sky went back to black in a split second. Funnels of black went in reverse, streaming back into human bodies, turning them back into demons.

Click.

They all doubled, and doubled again, until Sam and Dean were surrounded by an impenetrable force of demons and their clones.

The clicking turned into slow, douchey, clapping, and Sam knew before he spun around who he’d see.

Chuck stood in a gap in the crowd, a warm beam of sunlight haloing him. He grinned in that cocky, smarmy way of his. “Good job, boys,” he said. “You looked like real heroes. Well, except the part where you killed all those people.”

Sam growled low in his throat, hate filling him. He took a step forward--to do what, he didn’t know, to do something crazy--and Dean held him back. 

Chuck casually ambled over to them. “You really thought I wouldn’t know exactly what you were doing? Come on.”

“Then get it over with,” Dean snapped. “Make me kill Sam. Jerk yourself off. The end.”

“What a contrived line. Did I write that? This is supposed to be fun, guys! Dramatic! Suspenseful!”

Chuck raised a fist. “So that means I’m going to make it last.”

Sam felt the broken rib in his chest rotate a few degrees. It barely moved, but the pain was excruciating, the sensations unnatural and jarring. He gasped, clutching at his chest then letting go when the pain got even worse.

Dean was seething beside him, but Sam was glad Dean didn’t shout some typical insult. Yes, Chuck, your writing is a bit repetitive, Sam thought. One of us gets hurt and the other gets pissed off. Sam was definitely tired of it himself. 

Chuck turned toward their massive audience. “I need a volunteer,” he called out. “Not you, not you, not you… hmmm, yes, you’ll do.”

The crowd parted and Sam swallowed when he saw the little girl he’d shot. She still had a big messy hole in the center of her forehead, with skull bits sticking out like leaves.

“Sam, this is Delilah,” Chuck said. “You weren’t very nice to her. But she has been generous enough to forgive you. She has a gift for you.”

Delilah smiled up at Sam with little black eyes. She reached up toward her forehead and pressed her finger into the messy brain matter in her bullet wound. Sam hissed, wishing he could look away. Dark, thick blood oozed from her wound. She collected it in her hands like rainwater.

She walked carefully and slowly toward Sam, like she was walking down the aisle at a wedding. Instead of petals drifting from her hands, drops of blood hit the concrete in a dizzying pattern as she approached. 

“Sam,” Chuck said, and god, his voice was fucking annoying, “are you gonna take her gift?”

“Obviously not,” Sam snapped. He was all focus right now, all discipline, his feelings buried down deep. He wouldn’t acknowledge a single thing about the blood. The nightmares had paid off, in a way. They were all so horrible that Sam was even more repulsed by demon blood than usual.

He would not become a monster for Chuck.

The little girl stopped. She was only a few paces away from Sam.

Chuck waved his arm again. There was a muted sound and Dean grunted, holding his arm. Probably broken.

“Drink, Sam,” Chuck said.

Sam restrained a sigh. Was this all there was left? “No.”

Chuck raised his hand again and Sam braced himself, more out of empathy for Dean than anything.

But Chuck didn’t do anything.

“I was gonna do a whole thing. Like a build up, you know? But you guys have gotten a lot less fun to play with. You got old.”

Chuck was in Sam’s face before he could process it. “So I’m going to skip right to the good parts.”

Chuck’s arm shot out and he grabbed right at Sam’s bullet wound. A shout of pain left Sam’s throat. “You think I didn’t know about this?” Chuck said. “Not part of the plan, really, but maybe that’s a happy accident.”

Chuck did something--not a snap, nothing to mark the difference--and Sam’s world changed.

It was like Chuck had thrown open some curtains Sam had spent his whole life closing. It was too bright, blindingly bright, and loud, and sharp, and all of everything all the time.

It was Chuck’s thoughts, Chuck’s ideas, but uncensored, not pulled through another set of eyes. Sam couldn’t change his focus, couldn’t tune it out, couldn’t do anything. He was just a human and Chuck was a god. Chuck was showing him everything. He was paralyzed.

If there were other noises, like Dean shouting, Sam couldn’t hear them. If there were other thoughts to be had, like how to get out of this, Sam couldn’t think them. He wasn’t even aware of how he was falling to his knees in slow motion. The little girl’s cupped hands were now at mouth height.

She stepped forward. Sam’s mouth fell open, his expression listless. 

Dean’s bones were breaking, one by one, as punishment for his outbursts, for his struggles against Chuck’s powers. But he couldn’t stop, even as the pain became unbearable. 

But Sammy couldn’t hear him. 

Chuck was so fucking stupid.

Dean had never had faith. He wouldn’t call himself rational, but looking at the world and how fucked up it was, all that kind of shit seemed stupid. At least the Christian shit. Since finding out it was real--it was all real--he’d tried not to think about it.

But now, in the face of this selfish, insecure, incel-type idiot dudebro who was the center of so many people’s hopes and dreams and moral compasses, Dean just felt angry.

How much wrong had been done for Chuck, or by Chuck? 

The worst to Dean was how much faith Sam had had before all this.

Sam had always believed he was broken and wrong, and Dean hadn’t done his best to steer Sam away from it. He’d even contributed to it a couple times out of fear and desperation.

Sam’s last little tether to sanity had always been his faith. That even the worst of men could be saved. That he could work hard and prove himself after his mistakes.

Sam was the only person Dean had ever known that had such a big fucking heart.

And this was what Sam got? This was Sam’s god? Sam’s ending? 

Even if it did nothing, Dean couldn’t help but scream.

“You fucking listen to me, Sammy!” he shouted. “You listen to your older brother!”

Dean’s whole world was pain, amping up, slowly, but Dean had been through hell already. And this was for Sam. He could deal with broken legs for Sam.

“I know you can hear me through all that mess,” Dean continued. Luckily, Chuck seemed to find his speech entertainingly pathetic, so he hadn’t cut out Dean’s tongue yet. “I’m here for you, I have faith in you, and I always will.”

“Our emotional, incestuous leads,” Chuck cooed, making Dean flinch. “An audience favorite.”

Dean kept his eyes locked on Sam, his everything on Sam, trying to find some hint that Sam was with him. He didn’t know how long Chuck would draw this out before the blood hit Sam’s mouth, and he didn’t know what would happen after that.

“Do you remember what I said? About our souls doing that little dance? Can you still feel it? Sammy? Just hold onto me. Like we did that day.”

There it was. A flicker of recognition, half a second long, but Sam’s face wavered, his shiny, unblinking eyes finally letting a tear fall. Dean wrenched himself from Chuck’s hold and dragged his broken body over to Sam despite every step stealing his breath away.

Dean put his hands all over Sam, didn’t matter where. “I’m here. Focus on me. Lean on me. Okay?”

Sam’s hands reached out, shaking and slow, and grabbed at Dean. “More,” Sam whispered, “if we’re gonna. More.”

Dean didn’t understand at first, but their breathing slowed to match, their hands anchoring each other, and he remembered how for a few seconds when Cas had patched them together, and later, when they’d touched each other, they’d felt like one. Just one soul put in two bodies.

They hadn’t practiced, discussed, used any magic together, gotten any special items, nothing. But Dean knew what Sam was asking. He knew Sam was powerful, too. And he knew he had to try.

Dean closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.

He thought it might be hard to abandon his sense of self, to trust Sam completely, to have faith in the two of them as one. 

But it was easy. Sam’s powers were strong, innate. Sam drew him in like a flower coaxing a bumblebee. It was natural.

He would forget it after, but it felt like they were one ancient being, reborn throughout time, finally reconnected in one body and spirit, like waking up from a long nap.

He would forget it after, but it felt natural, like a homecoming, like spring after winter.

He didn’t know how they looked or sounded. He was starting to forget himself, and it was okay.

They were one.

They were not a god. They were not a demon or a monster. At least not by most definitions.

They were love itself. They were soulmates. They were life and breath. 

And Chuck was a god, a lover of death. A lonely individual. A broken and injured one. 

There was a fight. To human eyes, it would have looked like a great storm, a thunderstorm and a windstorm and a hurricane. 

But Chuck wasn’t the only god on this planet.

And he wasn’t the most powerful or the oldest.

There was a keenness to nature, a sense of right and wrong, a balance. 

And Chuck had upset the balance in a great and odious way.

That, above all else, was what ended things. Was what ended Chuck. 

The soulmates felt energy gifted to them, support running through them, an ancient righteousness that split Chuck into a million pieces and gave his energy back to the earth, who was starving for it. Back to other gods and their people.

Then he was gone. 

Then it was over.

Then the world took a breath.

But they were not over.

They were not gone.

They were still one, one soul curled around the other, operating the same body, drawing in big breaths.

They wanted things to get better.

They had worked so hard to become someone who could make things better.

They closed their eyes and found a sharp sense of focus, like a waterfall carving a path through centuries of rock.

The duplicate demons vanished. The original demons were packaged up in one cottony cloud of smoke and pushed back into hell. The humans were restored--those that could be. For some it was too late. Those ones were buried.

Order was restored. 

But power was a delicate thing, and they could feel their hands shaking. It was too much. They craved more.

All it took was one memory.

One single thought of their soul, separated in two.

When they were apart, their love was something to behold. Their love was something massive and beautiful and hard to describe.

And they loved their love. They didn’t mind cleaving apart, becoming small, becoming human, to become love itself.

It was why they’d done it in the first place, all those centuries ago. It was why they’d become soulmates.

It was the most wonderful experience, and they would really like to get back to it.

Separating was not as easy as coming together. They snapped apart, ripping away from themselves, aching, and lost their abilities, lost their connection to all things.

They were Sam and Dean, and they were both human, and their bodies were broken as shit.

They lay in the street, groaning in pain, ignored by everyone else who was also in pain. There was an ambulance somewhere, and that was a start, but this place was going to need a lot more than that.

“Sam!”

Yes, that’s what his name was now. He was starting to remember. He looked up through bleary vision to see Cas running toward him.

Cas crouched before him, helping him up, careful of his ribs. “You did it,” Cas said, voice soft in pure, unsoiled awe. “You did it.”

In his periphery, Sam could see Eileen helping Dean. Dean couldn’t stand. Dean was in worse shape than Sam. 

“Dean,” Sam managed, barely remembering how to speak, “help Dean.”

He watched Cas nod and then passed out, submitting to darkness.

Sam woke up in bits and pieces.

The first things to come back to him were the purely physical--the smell of the bunker, the starchy feel of sheets under his skin, the dry taste of his mouth.

Next came the aches and pains, of which there were many. His chest was sore in a way that wouldn’t let him catch his breath, and he felt like he’d pulled every muscle in his body. Trying to stretch led to a back spasm that kept him frozen there for over a minute until the muscles relaxed again.

But he was alive.

And, as the memories came back, in much better shape than when he’d passed out.

Cas must have tried to heal him, or maybe another creature that identified with their mission. Sam could only remember his union with Dean in a semi-detached kind of way, but he remembered feeling the presence of others lifting him--them--up. 

If he was achey, Sam didn’t want to imagine how Dean was.

Speaking of.

Sam hauled himself upright, heart pounding, body throbbing. He looked to his side and saw Dean curled up, completely asleep. He had no shirt on, the sheets around his hips, so Sam could see a myriad of stitches across Dean’s shoulders, and a cast on his left arm.

Considering how long Chuck had fucked with him, he looked great.

Sam had a whole lot of feelings floating around in his head. Feelings of such great multitude and magnitude he couldn’t quite process them. 

There was a lot to think about. His bond with Dean, the consciousness they shared. His powers. The fight. Chuck being dead. 

In all their lives, they’d never really been granted an aftermath. They’d never been able to breathe, to see a future.

This was different. This was so different that Sam didn’t want to go into it alone.

He reached out and shook Dean awake. Dean snuffed in his sleep, blinking and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He looked up at Sam with cowlicky hair. “Hmm?”

“Dean,” Sam said, throat full, that one syllable packed with as much meaning as it ever had been, and Dean woke all the way up in front of Sam’s eyes.

“Sammy--” Sam watched Dean go through all the same stages he went through, remembering and learning about everything that had happened to them one step at a time.

Like Sam said, it was a lot.

Dean was clinging to him without realizing, one hand curled around Sam’s wrist, flexing randomly as Dean remembered who they’d been together.

They had known each other in the most intimate way two souls could know each other. They had become one, sharing all their deepest fears and secrets and angers and loves. Shedding all barriers. 

And, before that, they’d kissed. They’d had sex.

Dean looked over at him with huge eyes and Sam couldn’t take it. He reached over, cupping Dean’s face. He leaned forward until their foreheads met and closed his eyes. He just breathed, soaking Dean in.

“Sammy,” Dean murmured, and Sam pulled back just enough to meet Dean’s tired eyes. “Hey.”

“I don’t want to go back,” Sam said, anxiety choking his throat, “I don’t want what we had before.”

Dean frowned. 

“I want this,” Sam barely managed. There was no room in their lives for false bravado, for macho distance, for lies and evasion. He traced the cut of Dean’s jaw, the rise of Dean’s cheeks. 

Dean stayed quiet. 

“I want everything,” Sam said, and he meant everything. “I want you.”

“Say something,” Sam pushed, after a beat of silence.

“Sammy,” Dean said. He reached out and pushed his hand through Sam’s hair, cradling Sam’s skull. “You already know I want it. But I. Don’t know how.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam whispered fiercely, tears beading at the corner of his eyes. “As long as we’re together.”

Dean chuckled, wiping at Sam’s eyes with his knuckle. “What do you want? A house? A job?”

“I don’t care,” Sam repeated. “I don’t want to hunt. I want you. With me. Safe. And I wanna touch you.”

Dean’s eyes went dark at the vulnerable rasp in Sam’s voice. “Then touch me,” Dean said.

So Sam did. With trembling hands he touched everything he could. He touched the sleepy spikes of Dean’s hair, the bumps of his unshaven chin, the little scars and pockmarks on his skin. 

Sam felt the veins in Dean’s neck, the bones in Dean’s collar. He felt Dean’s tattoo, Dean’s scars and stitches, Dean’s nipples and stomach. 

He ran his hands up and down Dean’s arms, across his lap. Scooted back to bump a hand down Dean’s knee and the arch of his foot.

Dean touched him back, so gently and lovingly Sam had no words for it, almost ashamed at how tenderly Dean uncurled Sam’s fingers, swept his hair back, rubbed down his spine. 

They were both expecting the kiss when it came, and Sam smiled into it, the soulmate bonded part of him singing with happiness. This is what they needed, what they deserved, what their souls had been yearning for since the beginning of time. 

“I want more,” Sam murmured against Dean’s lips. He twined their fingers together and looked Dean in the eye. “I want you to touch me.”

There were no misconceptions about how Sam wanted Dean to touch him. Their bodies and souls were both very much with the program, and Dean used his hands to worship Sam some more, to get them out of their clothes. 

They sat together, naked, and on the same page. Sam let himself be guided onto his back. He lay with his hair fanning across the pillow and watched while Dean gathered supplies.

Dean kept up a hushed, breathy conversation with Sam, asking what was okay, what was good. Sam nodded at everything, kept his face open, so Dean could see how much Sam trusted him right now, how much he wanted this.

Dean lubed up one finger and instructed Sam to lift his knees and spread his legs. Sam did as he asked and felt Dean’s hands massage at his thighs, rubbing closer and closer to his hole.

Dean pushed in, just barely, backing off almost immediately to apply more lube, to rub it into Sam’s skin and get him nice and wet down there.

Sam let himself get submerged by the sensations like sand rolling under the tides. Dean kept a good, steady rhythm, and Sam enjoyed the burn, the tightness, the realness of it. He enjoyed Dean’s stable, comforting presence, and how there was no doubt between them, no shame. Only want.

Dean worked him open with patience and love, both of them breathing heavily at what was to come. 

Sam fucked himself back on Dean’s fingers, searching for friction, and that was how he knew he was ready. That it was time.

“Dean,” Sam said, a lot more breathlessly and riddled with desperation than he’d intended. 

He didn’t need to say anything more. Dean knew. He withdrew his fingers, petting the inside of Sam’s sweaty and trembling thighs for a brief second. 

Sam watched with heavy-lidded eyes, hornier than he’d ever been in his life and twice as in love as that, as Dean lubed up his heavy red cock.

They made eye contact. Sam hid nothing.

Dean swore under his breath, grabbing his twitchy cock and lining it up with Sam’s hole. There was a pregnant pause, and then Dean pushed.

Then he was inside Sam.

It was tight and it hurt, and there was not enough lube for Dean to move around comfortably. He pulled out, a little too fast, and Sam hissed. Dean apologized under his breath and added more lube. Sam had a flash of a nightmare, of hell, but Dean’s soothing presence pushed it away as quickly as it had come.

They took it step by step, small movements and patient sighs, until Sam felt his body relaxing, felt himself opening up to Dean, craving it, wanting it. It went from a painful burn to a delicious slide.

Sam shifted, hiking his heels up onto Dean’s back, enveloping Dean in all of his limbs. He reached up to loop his arms around Dean’s shoulders and kissed him stupid. 

Dean fucked him. 

Dean fucked him good.

It was like parts of their souls were still attached. They shared a rhythm, holding onto each other and pressing as many parts of their bodies together as they could.

Sam wanted to live in the moment, to treasure this. His cock was wet and leaking on his tummy, so far untouched, and he was swimming in the heat and pleasure Dean was giving him, in the rightness and goodness of their sex.

Also, he was horny and this was about the sexiest thing he could imagine.

Sam rode the feelings, trying not to censor himself, flopping his head back on the pillow and breaking the kiss when Dean’s cock brushed at his prostate, moaning loudly, sweat building in the dip between his collarbones. He was full.

He lost himself in it, in scrabbling for purchase, touching Dean in random places, moaning and canting his hips to feel it just right.

Dean’s breathing got more labored, and Dean fucked him harder, their movements becoming punctuated wet slaps. Dean kissed him, biting at his face, and growled, shuddering as he came deep inside Sam, fucking him through the orgasm, the noises getting wetter and wetter as Dean’s come spilled out of Sam.

Oh, god. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. 

The desperation of it all, and the feelings, and Dean’s soul-burning orgasm, had Sam’s balls drawing up in preparation of his own orgasm. He reached down to touch himself but Dean batted him away. Dean’s hands were slick with a mixture of come and lube and he stripped Sam’s cock hard and fast, making Sam’s whole body contract. He arched off the bed, whining low in his throat as he came. 

He came for a long time, in pulses, Dean working him through it, and he had never felt like this, had never had an orgasm like this. 

When he came back to himself, his body ached all over, but it was a good ache. 

He felt kind of drunk, kind of disconnected, and he tried to stay tethered to reality like a balloon in a wind storm by groping for Dean and holding his brother close.

Dean said some things to him, cleaned him up, and shifted him onto his side. Sam barely processed it all, closing his eyes when Dean’s scent and the scent of sex wrapped around him.

He fell back asleep.

When Sam woke again, he was alone. 

His body hurt, but he was as comfortable as comfortable could get, like he’d just had the world’s best massage.

Sam smiled to himself; in a way, he had. 

He felt no rush to get up.

There was, for the first time in his entire life, nothing hanging over his head, and he was going to make the most of it.

The world was not ending. His loved ones were not dying. There was no great mystery to uncover, no conspiracy to dismantle.

All Sam had ever craved was peace. Peace for the world, for his family, and for himself. Peace, safety, confidence. A sense of rightness. A lack of fear and paranoia.

After hell, after the Trials and Gadreel and the nightmare of enduring Lucifer again and again, after learning who his god really was, Sam had come to terms with the fact he would never love himself. He would never feel safe. He would never stop glancing over his shoulder.

But right now, alone in soft quiet, Sam wasn’t so sure. 

Feelings lingered, and he hadn’t made great strides overnight, but he could see a future now where he learned how to be okay. Where he had the time and the support to get better.

He’d never had that before.

He wanted it like nothing else. 

He threw the sheets back in a fit of renewed energy. 

He put on his favorite lounge pants and sleep shirt, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, the whole nine. He took a shower and tended to his wounds, satisfied with where he was in the healing process. He made the bed and tidied up their room; Dean’s side was much messier than his, but he was feeling generous, so he cleaned everything.

He hummed to himself, touching their few personal objects, sharing a private moment of gratitude for the things they did have.

He survived. He won. He was okay. He was here.

These were miracle thoughts, and he felt like he could run a marathon and smile the whole time he did it. 

He got out his special box and started putting things on display. There was a cork board above the desk in their room and he pinned all his postcards and letters to it. He set the box out on the desk.

He picked up the amulet. He held it in his hand until the metal grew warm. 

He left the room.

It was easy to find Dean. All Sam had to do was follow the mouth-watering scents wafting from the kitchen.

Dean was at the stove making omelettes and singing along to the radio. He was also in PJs, wearing an apron. His hips swayed to the beat.

Sam leaned in the doorway, just taking a moment to feel grateful, to feel soft and content. He watched Dean with an absent smile on his face.

Dean turned just slightly, putting Sam in his periphery. “You just gonna stand there?”

Sam’s smile grew. He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the room with his bare feet. 

“Made yours first,” Dean said, gesturing to a plate on the table.

“Thanks,” Sam said. He sat at the table. Dean had made him an omelette with all his favorite ingredients, some toast, and a glass of orange juice. 

Sam’s stomach growled, and Sam felt a sharp pang of hunger. It was an unfamiliar feeling in his fast-paced life, and he ate to sate it. Food and Sam were not the best of friends, but Dean’s cooking was made with love (shut up), and Sam loved every bite.

Sam thought about the last time they’d sat together like this and how much had changed since then.

Dean sat down across from him with his own plate of omelettes and bacon, and they dug in in silent contentment. When they were done, they lingered in each other’s orbits, doing dishes and making useless small talk. 

“Dean,” Sam spoke up during a lull in the conversation, “I want to go on a road trip.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow at him. “Thought we were done hunting?”

“We are,” Sam said with as much confidence as he could muster. “I meant a real, proper road trip. Like the one we planned when I was nine.”

The spark behind Dean’s eyes grew brighter with every word until Dean was vibrating with the same kind of hopeful energy Sam felt. “Grand Canyon?” Dean asked.

Sam laughed, unable to contain his dimples and his love for his brother. “Grand Canyon,” he confirmed. “And anything else you wanna see.”

“What about you?” Dean asked. “What do you want?”

“I want you,” Sam said. “In every state in the union.”

Dean snorted. “Some of those are gonna be kinda hard.”

“You don’t want to fuck me in Hawaii?”

Dean shuffled into Sam’s space. “Babe,” he said, slapping Sam on the ass and making him squawk, “I’m gonna do more than fuck you in Hawaii.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I support it anyway. I think.”

“Good.”

Sam paced, ideas forming in his head like bursts of fireworks. “We could work jobs, see the world, maybe land somewhere, maybe not,” he said, thinking out loud. “We could always come back here, or we could take things with us. Settle down somewhere.”

Dean shrugged. “We could,” he agreed. “We could do anything.”

“I love you,” Sam said, very seriously.

Dean made a face. “I love you too,” he said, less seriously, but under the facade, Sam knew Dean’s devotion matched his own.

“I have something I want you to wear,” Sam said, a little quieter. He pulled the amulet out of his pocket and held it up by the cord, the pendant swinging between them.

Dean’s everything softened. There was a beat where Dean just stared. Dean nodded and took the necklace. He swung it around his neck and something in Sam’s chest loosened after all these years. “Thanks, Sammy.”

Sam was two seconds away from crying. He gave Dean a quick peck on the cheek. “What about a movie night with Eileen and Cas with some takeout, and we wake up late tomorrow to pack? Leave whenever we feel like it.”

“Sounds good, jerk.”

“Bitch.”

There were a lot of questions ahead of them, a lot of unknowns.

There was no destiny for them, no debts owed, no nothing.

To some, that might be anxiety-inducing, but to Sam, it was freeing.

He had the rest of today to do whatever he felt like, to muse on things or distract himself, to be with loved ones.

And tomorrow, he would be on a road to nowhere with the love of his life, the only thing driving them forward being a promise to each other and to themselves. A fire that grew stronger every day.

And to Sam, that was what made everything worth it.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading, thank you to the SWBB for having me again, and thank you to LeafZelindor for your help!


End file.
